diplomatic relations between bedmates remain tense

title: The Grinch/Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)rating: Gword count: 695prompt: Adventpairing: Kerrigan+Logansummary: Kerrigan hates Christmas.notes: this takes place a few years before How to Return Homewarnings: loss of faith and family

“Come on, you can’t really hate Christmas,” said Logan.

“Oh, yes. Yes, I can. I hate Christmas. The whole Christmas season.” Kerrigan pushed away half of her mall food court Chinese take out and crossed her arms.

“You hate it so much, you’re quoting one of the most famous TV Christmas specials of all time?” Logan raised an eyebrow in an exaggerated display of skepticism. He reached for her Styrofoam plate with his fork, and speared a chicken finger when she didn’t wave him off.

“Except you can ask why, and I do know the reason,” said Kerrigan.

She played along because she wanted to be convinced otherwise. Kerrigan wanted to enjoy the carols and the lights and the cookies again, if only because her other option was feeling angry from Halloween through Epiphany.

Christmas with her blood relatives was a big to-do. There was Christmas Eve dinner and the nativity play. Kerrigan was Mary the Christmas before last year. She got kicked out the next summer.

Logan believed. While Kerrigan had lost her faith in God, Logan held onto his belief. His eyes lit up when the caught strains of O Come All Ye Faithful drifting over the mall speakers.

“I know why, too. I get it, Kerry. Really,” he added, when Kerrigan frowned at him in disbelief. “It wasn’t easy, you know. I had to learn to like Christmas. I had to learn how to Christmas. Maybe that makes it easier.”

“How do you not know how to celebrate Christmas?” asked Kerrigan. “Aren’t your parents Jesus freaks?”

“My mom and dad are Jehovah’s Witnesses,” said Logan.

“You were a door-to-door God salesman?” Kerrigan snorted. “Okay, sorry,” she said, hurriedly, when she saw the look on Logan’s face. “It’s just something my dad said, and it’s … unexpected. I mean.”

“It is kind of funny. I witnessed. When I was a teenager, before I … moved out,” he said, delicately. Moved out wasn’t really how Kerrigan would have phrased the situation, but she didn’t bring it up. “So when I did, I learned how to celebrate Christmas. We didn’t live under a rock or anything, but we didn’t do any of that stuff. Maybe that makes it easier. No baggage.”

“Maybe.” Kerrigan agreed halfheartedly. She picked at a hangnail. Here was Logan, bearing his soul to make her feel better and the Christmas carols playing overhead still made her want to slither under a rock and not come out until Saint Patrick’s Day.

“You don’t have to like it,” said Logan. “I just don’t want you to hate it.”

Kerrigan sighed. She noisily drank the last watery dregs of her cola. It tasted awful, but it gave her time to think of something to say.

“I guess,” she said, eventually.

“Let’s start with what you do like,” said Logan. “What’s your favorite band?”

“I like Death Cab for Cutie, I guess.”

“You guess?” asked Logan. “Sorry, but who played their new album on a loop for weeks? I know what I’m getting you for Christmas.”

As he spoke, he shifted in the plastic food court seat and slipped his phone from his back pocket. Logan hunched over it to type something.

“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” said Kerrigan.

“I’m seeing if they do any Christmas covers,” said Logan. “We’ll start easy. Look, it’s not even like a real carol. It’s a melancholy love song. Not surprising, I guess. Here, let’s …”

Logan pressed play. Kerrigan leaned away from his phone on the Formica table, nose wrinkled. It wasn’t long before Logan realized it wasn’t helping. He apologized as he shut it off.